


Coping Mechanisms 101

by violentdarlings



Category: Travelers (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s01e03 Aleksander, Gender Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 18:19:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13323804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentdarlings/pseuds/violentdarlings
Summary: 3468's guide to de-stressing one's team in the 21st.





	Coping Mechanisms 101

3468 finds Philip on his bed.

“I thought Trevor was never going to leave,” 3468 says, standing in the doorway. Philip, curled up on his side on his bed, doesn’t even bother to open his eyes.

“You waited for him to go before coming in?” Philip asks. “Kind of creepy. Gonna ream me out again, Boss?”

3468 watches him for a moment. His team, they seem happy enough calling him Boss, or MacLaren, but 3468 has no idea what to call himself. Mac, he decides. He’ll be Mac, at least in the privacy of his own brain. Or rather, in the privacy of the brain that used to be Grant McLaren’s.

“No,” he replies, and sits down beside the younger man, the boy who was also once a woman, just like Mac himself. They have left the future in the past, and Mac has been practicing for too long now to be comfortable with both masculine and feminine pronouns. But Philip is a historian, subject to a different kind of training, and Philip out of all of them seems to be the least comfortable in his new skin.

It is not just the heroin. It is something else.

“You know,” Mac says carefully. “The early 21st century is when gender dynamics and dysphoria really started to be addressed. An era of people becoming more confident in choosing their preferred pronouns and identities, and a time of increasing acceptance.” Philip makes a deeply unpleasant noise, like Mac is an idiot.

“I’m a historian,” he says, for a moment sounding as young and bratty as his host must have been to listen to. “I know all of that.” Mac nods, and rests a hand on Philip’s shoulder. His historian is tense, like every muscle in his frame is locked.

“So if I were to call you a sweet girl, here in the confines of our base with absolutely no one else around, not only would it be okay, it would be within the established norms of the time we are now living in?”

Philip relaxes for a moment, like the strain weighing on him has leeched away, but it’s back in less than a heartbeat. “I don’t need that,” he spits out, rolling over so he can glare at Mac. “I’m not _weak_ –”

“Philip,” Mac says, and reaches out to touch his historian’s gilt-limned hair, the better to examine those river water eyes. “It’s all right.”

“You shouldn’t have to–”

“Team leader takes care of his team,” Mac reminds the younger man. “You have two choices. If you need this, then take off your trousers and underwear, and sit back down on the bed. If you do not, then advise me of such.”

“Fuck off,” Philip says at once, but as Mac starts to rise, he grabs his hand. “Boss,” he whispers, and through the male flesh Mac can see the willowy, pretty thing Philip was, a lifetime and several centuries ago. “Are you sure?”

“There were classes on it in training,” Mac says seriously, and Philip manages a smile. “How to destress your team. The chapter on orgies was particularly informative –”

“Shut up,” Philip says, but it’s on the edge of a laugh, a real one. “Pretty sure the Director doesn’t want us out here in the future having orgies left, right, and centre.” Mac grins just at the thought.

“Oh, the joys of the 21st,” he jokes, and Philip is slipping off his jeans, his underwear tangled in the leg of his pants, and Mac arranges himself, so his back is to the wall, and gestures for Philip to sit in between his thighs.

“Boss,” Philip murmurs, but does as told. His skinny backside – _ass_ , Mac’s gotta think of it as an _ass_ – is up against Mac’s crotch, but it’s not providing enough stimulation to concern him. Philip’s bony shoulder blades are more of a distraction, digging into Mac’s chest, but again, not a problem.

“Philip,” Mac returns, at normal volume, and leans in, to murmur in Philip’s ear, where only he can hear, “3326.” He can’t call Philip by his true name, the name that slender pretty girl had worn with pride, but he can use Philip’s Traveller number. That’s all.

It’s going to have to be enough.

“3326,” he says again, and reaches down, to Philip’s groin, and cups the soft flesh he finds there in his hand.

Philip arches, bites out a word that Mac doesn’t recognise, probably slang from the section Philip grew up in. “ _Oh_ ,” he says, a world of emotion in it, horror and fear and shock and desire. “That’s –”

The beginnings of an erection are starting under Mac’s hand. “It’s?” Mac prompts, starting a slow, gentle glide up and down, nibbling on Philip’s neck, the place where his pulse thuds under his skin. Philip’s hips jump into Mac’s hand, a quick, harsh burst.

“Weird,” Philip says, his head lolling back onto Mac’s shoulder. “Fuck. Boss, it feels weird.”

“I know, honey,” Mac soothes him, stroking back his historian’s long hair. He himself had been disturbed the first time he’d climaxed as a man. “That’s a good girl. She’s a sweet thing, my historian, don’t you think?” He’s just crooning, really, but Philip is hardening further in his hand, his breathing fast and ragged, pupils dilated (from what Mac can see of his face). Classic signs of arousal.

“Oh, I miss having breasts,” Philip gasps out. Mac smirks.

“Me too,” he replies, but uses his free hand to reach under Philip’s sweatshirt to tweak his pert little nipple all the same.

Philip moans, and twists his head onto Mac’s other shoulder. Mac bites his ear. “You won’t last long,” Mac tells him. His hand is almost a blur on Philip’s cock, and Philip is shaking all over, and his hips can’t keep still. “Good girls never do when I’ve got my fingers on their clit.” Hell, Mac might be crossing a line, but he can’t stop. “And you’re going to be a good girl for me, 3326, aren’t you?” Philip opens his eyes, shockingly bright, pupils dilated and looking at Mac like he’s the saviour of the human fucking race incarnate. It’s intoxicating.

“Yes,” he gasps, and comes.

Mac milks it from him, from the jet of come to the following, smaller bursts, keeps up the rhythm until Philip is twitching away from his touch, overly sensitive. “I’ll say it again,” he says eventually. “ _Weird_.” Mac smirks.

“I thought so too. The first time it happened to me, I nearly hit the ceiling. It was a simpler life, being female.” Philip nods. His head is still resting on Mac’s shoulder. His come is still all over Mac’s hand.

“I’m gonna –” Philip gestures in the general direction of the bathroom. “Clean up. Put my pants back on.”

Mac is considerably relieved when he’s gone. Not because he doesn’t like his teammate, or because he regrets what’s happened, but because he’s pretty sure he’s emotionally stunted from the trauma of growing up when he did. To distract himself from that less than pleasant train of thought, he rinses off his hands in the spare sink and dries them on what looks like one of Marcy’s surgical drapes.

One of Marcy’s _used_ surgical drapes.

Mac sighs. Even by the standards he can from, overcrowding and filth and degradation, his team are… well… kind of disgusting.

Philip returns. Mac crosses the room to him in a few short strides. He does like the longer legs. And being able to loom over everyone. “Sleep now,” he tells Philip, and leans down, briefly, to kiss Philip lightly on the forehead. “Tomorrow it will be like this never happened. But should you need this, again –”

Philip smiles, faintly. “I’ll call.” Mac shrugs on his coat.

“Just don’t tell my wife,” he replies, and takes the warmth of Philip’s laughter with him, out into the cold air of the night.


End file.
